My lover flops back on the bed, exhausted. “Aargh,” he moans. “I’m wrecked. No more.”

Something unusual has occurred this evening – I’ve had an orgasm but he hasn’t. My first thought is to wonder if I’ve done something wrong. I quell this worry by telling myself that he has had a long and stressful day. This is true and instead of letting him stay home to recuperate I dragged him out to the pub. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I know he enjoys having sex with me – after all, he’s been happy to do so repeatedly – and with me he has had countless orgasms. Still I can’t help but be a little disappointed and concerned.
Of course it could have been worse – he could have faked it.
Everybody knows that women don’t orgasm every time they have sex, and it’s an accepted truism that because of this, lots of women fake it – more than two thirds of women have put on a performance at some point according to an article in the latest issue of the Journal of Sex Research.
What is less well known is that sex doesn’t come with an ironclad guarantee of orgasm for men either. What’s more, men are not beyond faking it either – around a quarter of men have, according to the same research.
Me, I’ve never seen the point in faking an orgasm. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. It may be stress or tiredness or happen for no particular reason at all, but sometimes my orgasm remains elusive. As far as I am concerned, as long as the sex was enjoyable then it really isn’t a big deal. Don’t get me wrong – sex with an orgasm is my preference, but sex without one can still be a very satisfactory experience. If anything, feeling obliged to roll my eyes and groan in simulated ecstasy would negate any joy or pleasure I felt by adding a patina of dishonesty to an otherwise happy experience.
Why do people fake orgasms? According to the study by Charlene L. Muehlenhard and Sheena K. Shippee in the Journal of Sex Research there are four common reasons: the person feels that an orgasm is unlikely; they want sex to end; they do not want to hurt their partner’s feelings; and they want to please their partner. The reasons are the same for men and for women, but wanting sex to end was the most common reason for men. Four fifths of women who fake do so to spare their partner’s feelings, and half of the men who had had a sham orgasm had done so for this reason too.
Drawing on their interviews, Muehlenhard and Shippee concluded that in many cases people operate according to a “sexual script” – the belief that sex should follow a set pattern. In particular the idea that a woman should orgasm before her partner does or at the same time puts women under pressure to fake an orgasm at the supposed right time, instead of allowing it to follow its own course. The belief that a man’s orgasm should follow relatively shortly after a woman’s means that men can feel compelled to simulate a climax as well.
The fact that men sometimes fake an orgasm wasn’t exactly news to me as I’d read this before, but I was surprised that such a large percentage had. Surprised and somewhat perturbed – after all, if one in four men have faked an orgasm it seems likely that someone, somewhere, at some point, may have done so with me. It was an uncomfortable thought.
“Nonsense!” said my former fling Ronan when I confessed my fears to him. Like most people I prefer it when others agree with me, but in this case I was happy to have my anxieties dismissed. I decided to believe him mostly because that was emotionally and psychologically less bothersome, but also because Ronan is one of the few men I could find who would admit to having put on a show for a partner.
I asked nearly fifty men if they had ever pretended to orgasm and all but two ridiculed the suggestion. One in twenty-five is a lot less than one in four, but I have a suspicion that those who fake, particularly on a regular basis, are unlikely to be forthcoming about it – it would seem to defeat the purpose. Most of the men I questioned were curious as to how it was even possible. “How do you do that? Sneeze on her back?” one asked. “Let me know when you find out.”
As Ronan and Alan described it, wearing a condom makes faking an orgasm as easy for men as for women. With a condom, a woman cannot feel the physical evidence of a man’s ejaculation making it distinctly easy to fudge the truth.
“I was having mediocre sex and I was bored and I wanted to get it over with,” Ronan explained. “I made the requisite grunts and groans and then I pretended I finished. With a flourish I whipped the condom off and disposed of it before any evidence of betrayal could be found.”
“I don’t think it was all her fault,” he added gallantly. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work and you need an excuse to stop. Faking it seemed like the ideal way to get out of that particularly scenario.”
Alan felt the urge to fake not because the sex wasn’t enjoyable, but rather because it was far too exciting.
“I came too soon but she hadn’t come yet,” he said. “I just kept on going until she came when I joined in with the loud screams. I moaned and groaned and made sweet cum noises. And yes, I was able to stay hard for just long enough without letting the cat out of the bag so to speak.”
Alan’s partner appears to have been following a sexual script similar to what Muehlenhard and Shippee described.
“If she had been okay with me coming before her then I guess I wouldn’t even have tried,” said Alan. “But I knew she’d lose her focus as it had happened once before. Faking it seemed to help, and since sex is a team sport I’m all for creating the best possible environment.”
A sexual script or narrow set of parameters of what qualifies as successful sex can put both men and women under pressure and makes sex less about pleasure and more about performance.
If a man or woman feels under pressure to fake an orgasm it suggests that the relationship is not intimate enough for honesty. That’s fine, and maybe even preferable, if you are having a one-night stand or a short-term fling, but feeling beholden to perform in a particular way with a regular or long term partner to such an extent that a dishonest orgasm feels like the best option doesn’t bode well for the relationship.
With this in mind I was able to look anew at the fact that on this occasion my partner hadn’t been able to reach orgasm.
Was it my fault? No, because I am not responsible for his orgasm no more than he is responsible for mine. Certainly you should go out of your way to create an enjoyable experience for your partner, but that doesn’t mean that an orgasm or lack thereof is wholly down to the person you are having sex with.
However I think it is fair to say that if he had felt obliged to fake it that would have been my fault because that would have been a reflection on who I was. Instead he gave me a kiss and a cuddle and we fell asleep in each other’s arms. Maybe this time it wasn’t earth shattering, but there are certainly worse ways to end an evening!